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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Dear readers-I hope you’re enjoying the new format of our Audio Solutions
magazine, one of GC Pro’s main avenues of communication with current and
future clients, manufacturer partners and the wider Guitar Center community. GC
Pro continues to evolve, developing improved and innovative ways to serve our
customers. Our mission is threefold: to provide you with the tools needed to remain
on the cutting edge of performance and technology, to help you solve problems
within your budget and to offer consultation services at no additional charge.
We are proud to unveil a newly redesigned website, gcpro.com, regularly
updated content and access to our employee team-the most knowledgeable
sales staff in the industry. The new site is fully integrated with guitarcenter.com,
allowing online shopping day and night, access to your local professional sales
staff and an easy connection to our contact center for immediate support.
Through this site, we provide an unparalleled level of resources, including
technical information, product videos, blogs, manufacturer specs and much
more. For example, site visitors can select featured products in the realms of
high-end recording, live sound or microphones and find dedicated product
pages for those items with unique, comprehensive information. Products,
personnel, and design/installation services all perfectly integrated and at your
fingertips-GC Pro’s new online home.
Thank you for reading.
Rick Plushner
Vice President, GC Pro
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O SolutionS
LIVE Knows How to Live
1990s HITMAKERS RETURN WITH NEW
MUSIC AND A BASE OF OPERATIONS
THAT BATMAN WOULD ENVY
The concept of a rock 'n' roll band as an enterprise dates back to the days of the
Grateful Dead, which aside from creating the jam-band category also acted as a
kind of development house for companies like Alembic and Furman Sound. The
concept of an entrepreneurial band has remained a robust thread, right through
figures like U2’s Bono, a principal in Elevation Partners, a private equity firm
that invests in intellectual property and media and entertainment companies.
“[Guitarist] Chad Taylor, [drummer] Chad Gracey and I went to look at this
building thinking it would be an investment, as we had tenants in another
building for some of the companies we’re partners in,” he recalls. As they began
exploring the vast, empty four-story space, they realized that this could be an
even bigger kind of investment. “We got up to the top floor and saw the vaulted
ceiling and Chad and I said to ourselves, ‘This might be just what we need.’”
The next chapter in that esoteric business book is being written now, in York,
Penn., where the members of the recently reconstituted Live, the ’90s hitmakers
behind tracks like “Lightning Crashes,” which stayed at the top of the Billboard
Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for 10 consecutive weeks, have built their
own distinctive hive. York Street is their name for a four-story, 53,000-squarefoot, former printing factory turned multi-room recording studio, rehearsal
facility, high-tech clubhouse and office warren for the band and their corporate
spin-offs. And while they were there finishing the last tracks for the newest Live
album, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer underscored the pragmatism that allowed
the band to maintain its bonds even as it undergoes a less-than-amicable
divorce from original lead vocalist Ed Kowalczyk and to finish a summer tour
before starting the new album.
It’s what any band would need and want, and fortunately, thanks to smart
stewardship of the band’s earnings over the years, Live also had the means to
achieve it. The turn-of-the century former factory structure offered them plenty
of room to execute a broad vision, with each of the 40,000-square-foot levels
dedicated to various elements of a long-term strategy. The first level houses
Think Loud Development (the band’s land, lease and development company)
and rental tenants, providing the venture with an extra income stream. The
second floor is occupied by United Fiber & Data, a tech startup that’s in the
process of running dedicated fiber-optic transmission lines between New York
City and Washington, D.C., prompted in part by watching what Google has done
in cities like Kansas City and Austin (the band’s three founding members are
equal shareholders along with their business partner, Bill Hynes).
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LIVE Knows How to Live
Multiple Levels
“We actually went to Kansas City and saw what Google was doing there,” notes
Dahlheimer, who says they were fascinated not just by the technology and its
possibilities but also by the fact that entire new entrepreneurial communities
are springing up along the route the fiber is taking, a phenomenon he compares
to how the U.S. expanded westward by following burgeoning railroad lines in
the 19th century. It’s something the band feels is already helping stage a hightech comeback for their hometown of York, which like many manufacturing
centers of the last century was hit hard by outsourcing and the recession.
By the third level, visitors get a sense that it’s not all work and no play here.
There is a workout gym complete with spa, dry and wet saunas, and a home
theater. There is also a vault for Chad Taylor’s guitars, and two high-end hotelstyle producer’s suites.
The top level is home to the studios. Exposed brick, wood beams, and the
vaulted ceiling with huge windows (letting in tons of natural light) are the
architectural flourishes that cosset a world-class recording facility. Studio
A’s huge 30-by-25-foot control room features an SSL Duality console and an
Avid Pro Tools HDX3 System with Antelope Isochrone clocking, in addition to
a monitoring system consisting of Ocean Way HR2 mains and a Meyer Sound
UMS-1P subwoofer paired with Yamaha NS-10M nearfields. Six racks house
over 50 pieces of outboard gear such as a Bricasti M7 Model 7 Stereo Reverb
Processor, Neve PL31073-CV channel amplifier and PL31084-CV mic preamp/
EQ. Out in the 50-by-45-foot recording room, you’ll find Aviom System A360
personal mixers and a microphone cabinet holding treasures such as AKG C12,
Bock Audio 251 and Sterling ST6050 mics.
Studio B is smaller but quite capable. A Pro Tools HDX3 system with Avid Artist
Series Mix & Control is complemented by Ocean Way AS-1 main monitors.
Processing includes Radial Powerhouse with assorted 500-series micpre, EQ and compression modules from API, Neve, Purple Audio and other
manufacturers. But Studio B has an interesting trick up its sleeve: all of the
equipment is designed to be easily unplugged, using Elco connectors, and
all three racks are on casters, ready to be a studio on wheels for recording
live performances.
A vital piece of this remarkable undertaking is GC Pro, which not only provided
virtually every single item on the studio’s equipment lists but also brought
the band and the designer together, through GC Pro’s Affiliate Program,
which connects clients with design, integration and construction specialists
and services. Billy Walker, Account Manager based in GC Pro’s Wilmington,
Delaware office, correctly felt that GC Pro Affiliate Malvicino Design Group
would be a good fit. “We all hit it off immediately,” recalls acclaimed designer
and consultant Horacio Malvicino (President, Malvicino Design Group), who
designed the studios and much of the rest of the facility. “We each understood
where the other was coming from. The band wanted a place that really
encouraged not just creativity but also business and the desire to be there
every day, so it had to be beautiful and comfortable. And they shared my vision
that you can have both beauty and great acoustics. And with GC Pro, we had
access to every piece of gear we wanted.”
Additionally, both studios share access to a lounge and professional kitchen
with plenty of stainless steel and granite, but the piece de resistance is a spiral
staircase that leads to the building’s rooftop terrace, where band members
can unwind after a long stint in the studio with barbecue fare from a massive
outdoor pit and a dip in a Jacuzzi with a glass of wine.
The Designer
That wine was likely recommended by Malvicino, whose epicurean tastes are
reflected in everything from the finishing touches in the kitchen to the way he
converted several spaces in the building’s basement into live reverb chambers
complete with vintage Altec Lansing Big Red speakers at one end and Neumann
U-67 and U-87 condenser microphones at the other, with tie lines to the control
rooms. Just as the Liguria, Italy, native required that the kitchen spice rack has
plenty of oregano, he made sure the studio can go from cutting-edge digital via
the Pro Tools systems to a touch of vintage analog with a custom-modified MCI
JH-24 multitrack deck.
“This place is one-of-a-kind, and that’s how we designed it,” says Malvicino,
whose portfolio includes studios for such clients as Soundtrack, Noise
Match Studios, Scissor Sisters, Kanye West and Demk International, as well
as recording and broadcast facilities in Europe, Latin America and the Middle
East. “The guys in the band were entirely and deeply committed to making an
amazing creative space; that goes for everything from the studios to the tenant
spaces. They gave me so much support and latitude to implement the design,
which made the process particularly enjoyable. You just don’t see facilities like
this in this day and age.”
If York Street is a fantasy come true for Live, it’s also a solidly reasoned
investment, one they intend to manage as well as they have every other aspect
of their careers. What’s as important to them, though, is that it keeps much
of the bounty of their success in their hometown. “York is the classic story
of a small town where you grow up thinking that you can’t wait until you can
get away, then you grow up and have a family and realize that it’s actually the
perfect place to live and raise your kids,” Dahlheimer muses. “I’m glad we were
able to make this work in York. It reminds us all of where we came from and
how we started.”
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Capture passion.
www.bluemic.com
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AUDIO SolutionS
APPLE 2013 MACBOOK PRO 15" RETINA DISPLAY 2.0GHZ QUAD-CORE i7
Quad-core i7 power and the incredible
clarity of a Retina display are the hallmarks
of the latest 15" MacBook Pro, an ideal
production center for the mobile producer
or engineer.
(ME293LL/A)
199900
$
UNIVERSAL AUDIO APOLLO QUAD-CORE
With built-in UAD-2 Quad power and available Thunderbolt connectivity, as well as an impeccably
world-class analog front end, UA's Apollo Quad defines the next generation of audio interface.
(82-40452) LIST: $2999.00
249999
$
MANLEY TNT
Tubes or no tubes? Manley's TNT 2-channel mic pre gives you both in a single box, combining
Manley's SLAM! tube pre with a new "no-tube" design based on classic British consoles.
(MTNT) LIST: $3000.00
LEWITT AUDIO LCT 940
Born out of a desire to create mics that feed,
not restrict, the creative impulse, Lewitt
Audio's LCT940 was designed to complement
contemporary recording procedures and
capture sound with clarity and nuance.
(LCT-940)
LIST: $2150.00
159999
$
270000
$
GENELEC 8050BPM BI-AMP
STUDIO MONITOR
Combining the accuracy
for which Genelec is
known with modern energyefficient requirements,
the 8050B is a superb tool
for studios, broadcast,
surround installations
and post houses.
(8050BPM)
LIST: $2450.00
219500
$
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The new ETX family builds upon the industry-leading
innovation and 85-year heritage of Electro-Voice audio
engineering to offer the most advanced professional
portable powered loudspeakers available today.
POWE R E D
10 • 12 • 15 • 15 3-way
15 sub • 18 sub
• State-of-the-art components deliver the legendary EV sound quality and reliability
the pros trust: 1800 W (subs) & 2000 W (full-range) Class-D power amplifiers with
integrated DSP produce high SPLs utilizing high-sensitivity, low-distortion transducers
(including DVX & SMX series woofers and precision DH3-B HF titanium compression
drivers).
• Lightweight, ergonomic, durable and compact 18-mm, 13-ply birch plywood
enclosures finished with EVCoat. Eight mounting points for permanent installations
(full-range models). Custom die-cast aluminum pole cups, handles and hardware.
Performance beyond the
reach of the competition.
BRAINPOWER
Intelligent technology,
innovative design.
• EV’s FIR-Drive utilizes the latest Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter technology to
optimize transducer linearity. Advanced limiter algorithms for independent peak and
thermal transducer protection.
• Complete full-function DSP control via a single-knob interface. LCD screen for easy system
set-up and monitoring: location/application EQ presets (e.g. tripod, mounted, suspended,
live, music, speech), limiter status, input level controls/meters and master volume control
to ensure optimal gain structure. Parametric EQ allows for more precise configuration.
Subs feature a preset for true cardioid performance.
Designed, engineered, tested and
assembled for ultimate reliability
by Electro-Voice in the USA.
www.electrovoice.com/ETX
NEW FOR SPRING 2014!
©2014 Bosch Security Systems, Inc.
• EV-patented Signal Synchronized Transducers (SST) waveguide design provides precise
and consistent coverage across all system configurations. Waveguides are customdesigned and optimized per ETX model.
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AUDIO SOLUTIONS
PRODUCT FOCUS / SLATE RAVEN
POWE R E D
•
R
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beyond the
ompetition.
RAVEN FOR LOGIC
Imagine turning Logic X into a powerful multi-touch control surface. The Slate Media Technology
RAVEN MTX and MTi consoles now offer state-of-the-art multi-touch faders, gesture commands,
customizable macro keys, user definable layouts, and many more features in their Logic X RAVEN
Control Software.
DUAL RAVEN
In the fast-paced audio industry, having easy access to your DAW is crucial to efficient workflow.
With the new Slate Media Technology RAVEN MTX Pro Tools Dual Screen Control software, RAVEN
users can simultaneously use two RAVENs for the EDIT and MIX windows to maximize their speed
and creativity.
PRODUCT FOCUS / SOFTWARE & MIC
ology to
peak and
VMS
Welcome to the future of microphones. The Slate Digital ML-1 large diaphragm
and ML-2 small diaphragm condenser microphones combine with the VMS
preamp/converter and the VMS digital plugins (VST, AU, AAX) to form the
VIRTUAL MICROPHONE SYSTEM. Using the VIRTUAL MICROPHONE SYSTEM,
audio engineers have access to precise recreations of dozens of the most
classic tube, condenser, dynamic, and even ribbon microphones.
for easy system
ed, suspended,
volume control
onfiguration.
2014!
©2014 Bosch Security Systems, Inc.
vides precise
custom-
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$1199
99
$1399
99
Digital Heart. Analog Soul.
Direct Recording
Discrete Mic Preamps
Record mp3 or .wav files of your
performances directly to a USB device.
This is where sound creation begins.
Studio-inspired preamps bring out music’s
character, depth and warmth.
Graphic EQ
X-pressive EQ
Output EQ allows tailoring of the overall sound
and helps reduce and control feedback.
Fast, steep filters – via Yamaha Virtual Circuit
Modeling – provide the precise response
needed to refine the sound.
Multi-Band Master Compressor
1-Knob Compressors
Choose a standard full range or a multi-band
compressor to control peak sound levels.
These intelligent compressors help tame a
wide variety of input sources, all with the
turn of a single knob.
Yamaha MGP Mixing consoles take an innovative approach to utilizing digital technology in an analog mixer. Adding
high-resolution effects, iPhone/iPod integration and the functionality of the Stereo Hybrid channel to the warmth and
musicality of premium analog sound represents the ultimate balance of heart and soul. Get the full story by visiting
www.4wrd.it/mgpfgc or visit your local Guitar Center to experience it for yourself. Your music deserves it.
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AUDIO SolutionS
QSC KLA12 ACTIVE
LINE ARRAY SPEAKER
Powerful, easy to deploy, and extremely versatile,
the QSC KLA 12 Line Array is an extraordinary
solution for both portable and permanent
installations, either ground-deployed or flown.
AVAILABLE THROUGH GCPRO.COM
(KLA12BLK) LIST: $2999.00
259900
$
SHURE SLX BETA58 HANDHELD
WIRELESS SYSTEM
Shure's true-diversity SLX24 wireless with Beta58
handheld supports up to 42 compatible systems, with auto
setup and Shure's patented Audio Reference Companding
for superb wireless sound.
(SLX24/BETA58-H5) LIST: $799.00
63999
$
Soul.
SENNHEISER EW 300 IEM G3
IN-EAR WIRELESS MONITOR SYSTEM
Featuring reliable adaptive-diversity technology and a built-in 5-band
graphic, Sennheiser's ew 300 G3 in-ear system delivers custom sound to
every performer.
(EW300IEMG3-B)
LIST: $999.95
BEFORE $75
MAIL-IN REBATE
99995
$
t
CHAUVET SLIMPAR PRO TRI
AMERICAN DJ VIZI SPOT 5R LIGHT FIXTURE
With the very latest in tri-color LEDs for uniform output and the elimination
of multi-color shadows, Chauvet's SlimPar Tri Pro is a great wash or fill that
also works well in front.
Faster, lighter and brighter are always good. American DJ's Vizi Spot 5R
moving-head spot offers a flat, even spot
field with excellent color saturation and
versatile gobo effects.
(SLIMPARPROTRI) LIST: $559.99
39999
$
(VIZI SPOT 5R) LIST: $2099.95
149999
$
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